Nerve Center d-2

by Dale Brown

  Where would they go? For now, they were running along the course Madrone had plotted. But that was suicide.

  Mayo nodded nervously as she slipped into the seat beside him. He began reading off bearings and instrument numbers — a status report. Everything was in perfect order.

  “Why ten thousand feet?” he asked abruptly.

  “Not now, Lieutenant. Just hold the course.”

  Mayo started to say something, but thought better of it. Minerva folded her arms, staring at the darkness before her.

  Pei, Brazil

  8 March, 0550

  Danny made sure Powder and Liu had the prisoners under control, then approached the hangar building cautiously. He flipped Annie’s CIV visor back into IR mode. There was one person in the hangar that he could see; he lay prone on the floor behind a desk or some boxes with a view of the doorway.

  A flash-bang in his hand, Danny went to the entrance and crouched down. He couldn’t see the man now — the boxes were too thick. He reached up with his grenade hand and flicked the visor into enhanced starlight mode. The aiming triangle appeared; he lowered his aim toward the boxes, then stepped forward, slowly turning his attention around the hangar.

  Empty.

  Something moved behind him.

  He threw himself down, then saw it was only Powder.

  “Shit, sorry,” said his point man through the laser com.

  “Down,” hissed Danny, pointing toward the boxes.

  Powder nodded, then began working his way sideways to the left. Danny slid toward the opposite wall.

  “Get away from the gun, motherfucker!” shouted Powder, who’d come up behind the Brazilian.

  Danny rose slowly. The Brazilian didn’t move.

  “He’s dead, Captain,” said Powder, moving in slowly.

  “Hold on. Stop,” said Danny. He clicked the CIV visor control, examining the object in front of the dead Brazilian. It looked like the guts of a small rocket, or maybe a large artillery shell.

  “What’s up?”

  “There’s a bomb or something sitting in the middle of the floor. It’s got a timer. Go see if you can find some lights. No, wait a second.” Freah lowered himself to his knees. There was a radiation symbol on the interior of the metal casing, heading about a paragraph’s worth of closely printed letters. “You read Portuguese, Powder?”

  “Negative, sir.”

  “Go get Bison,” Danny said. “Tell him we have a bomb to disarm. Tell him it may be a tricky one, and to bring his full set.”

  “Sniffer too?”

  “Especially the sniffer. And Powder, get the Satcom. Go very fast.”

  Chapter 95

  Dreamland

  8 March, 0200 local (Brazil 0600)

  Mack paced outside TM, trying to contain his fury.

  He knew exactly what Madrone would do, how he would fly. He’d get around the F-15’s if they weren’t careful.

  Hell, even if they were careful. Because they’d be too damn full of themselves.

  Been there, done that himself.

  To be put on ice. Bullshit. Bullshit!

  He could have the MiG fueled on his own authority.

  Not armed, though. That would take an order from Bastian. Technically. Odds were no one would question him if he said it was approved.

  God, they couldn’t just leave him on the ground. At least let him talk to some of the pilots, give them advice. They friggin’ thought he was a traitor. Damn them all.

  Chapter 96

  Pej, Brazil

  8 March, 0613 local

  “Captain, I’m assuming this is very important.”

  “Annie, I need your help,” Danny said. The Army transports were just arriving outside, making it difficult to hear. “I’m looking at what I think is a nuclear warhead wired to a timer that’s supposed to go off in thirty-seven minutes.”

  “Why do you think it’s a warhead?”

  “Our sniffer says it’s full of uranium.”

  “Read me the scale level.”

  “Okay. Uh, hang on.” He fumbled with the small Geiger counter, clicking it through its modes. About the size of a lunchbox, the field unit could detect the depleted uranium used for A-10 cannon shells at about fifty yards. Whiplash carried similar units for toxic chemicals and known gas agents. “497.83,” said Danny, “on the, uh, hundredths, no, thousandths scale.”

  “That’s fine,” said Annie. “How large is the device?”

  “About the size of an artillery shell.”

  “How far away are you?”

  “About three feet, max.”

  “Tsk. I believe your unit may be doubling the reading.”

  “Is it a bomb?”

  “Well, you’re the one looking at it. The reading is certainly high enough. Interesting — you’re in Brazil?”

  “Interesting? What should I do?”

  “Technically, Captain, I am not an expert on nuclear devices.”

  “The NSC is supposed to be getting me one,” Danny told her. “But right now, you’re the best I got, Annie.”

  “Well, thank you for the vote of confidence, Captain.” Annie sighed. “What does Sergeant Bison think?”

  Bison came on the line and described the setup of the wiring to her. Danny squatted down on his knees about a foot from the timer, which he had uncovered by pulling the top off the trunk that was inside the boxes. The timer had several folds of wires running off it, including one that led to a large brick of C-4. Bison thought that was a booby trap, and Klondike agreed.

  “So what the hell do we do?” Freah finally asked his sergeant.

  “She’s thinking, Captain.” Bison nodded a few times, then began describing the thick group of wires that fed into the front of the device.

  Danny nearly had a heart attack as his munitions expert pulled at the winds of black tape.

  “Wants to talk to you, Captain,” Sergeant Bison said finally, giving the radio handset back to him.

  “Creative,” said Annie. “I’m not an expert on tactical nuclear devices, but in my experience, the device sounds rather primitive. Most likely it is primed by a focused explosive device, which would propel an atomic pellet into a cup of material toward the base. Rather like the Hiroshima bomb, in a way, except that there the mechanism—”

  “As powerful as that?”

  “Oh, no. Only half. Probably even less — maybe a tenth, assuming I’m right about your sniffer reading. I don’t particularly like those devices; I saw two that malfunctioned in the Gulf, once when the consequences could have been very serious. Of course, the real key isn’t so much the size of the warhead as the design of the explosive lens that initiates the reaction. An American bomb that size could wipe out a city the size of New York, whereas a Pakistani bomb would barely destroy twelve or thirteen blocks. They’re quite hopeless as designers because they don’t have the hang of focusing the explosion. On the other hand—”

  “Annie, there’s a timer on this thing.”

  “Yes, I understand that. Well, either you or Sergeant Bison has to take it apart. That’s the first step. Undo the booby-trap component and then we’ll tackle the timer. This way maybe we can see which of the wires are obviously fake.”

  “You don’t think the booby trap might set it off?”

  “Always a possibility.”

  Danny stood up.

  “I can get the C-4 off no sweat, Captain,” said Bison.

  The weapons expert stooped over the bomb. Bison worked quickly — a little too quickly, it seemed to Danny.

  “All right, get some screwdrivers,” the sergeant said finally. Danny went over to the side of the hangar where there was a large tool case. He didn’t realize until he was walking back that Bison had only sent him on the errand to make himself less nervous.

  “Wasn’t even connected,” said the demo expert, pointing to the plastic explosive. “Just there to fake us out. I think.”

  “Maybe the whole thing is a fake.”

  “That I wouldn’t coun
t on.”

  Powder gingerly held up the small clock dial and touched one of the buttons on the side with the blade of the screwdriver. “Still giving me the local time, 0636. Still set to go at 0650. I think anyway. Could be a second sequence, like a countdown from there.”

  “Probably the detonation,” said Annie when Danny told her over the Satcom.

  “Can we stop it?”

  “Long shot.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Just trying to be optimistic. Would you like to know what happened on Jeopardy tonight, or should we get to work?”

  Chapter 97

  Aboard Galatica

  Over Colombia

  8 March, 0536 local (0636 Brazil)

  Zen drifted in and out of consciousness for a while, strange visions twisting in his head.

  He walked in midair toward the large crimson sun. His legs felt solid and strong.

  A warning flashed. Bogeys. F/A-18’s.

  Zen’s head cleared. He was at the U/MF observer station, the technician’s bench next to the control seat. Two American F/A-18 Navy fighter-bombers were approaching. They might have caught something on their radar, though the threat screen indicated they hadn’t picked up the lead Flighthawk, which was on an intercept vector from the southeast.

  The Hughes APG-73 digital programmable radar of the F/ A-18’s rated among the best conventional radars in service; were the Flighthawk a conventional fighter, it could have been detected at no less than a hundred nautical miles, even in look-down mode, which tended to lower the range. But the Flighthawk was much smaller and considerably stealthier than a conventional plane. Its pilot also had the advantage of seeing exactly where the radar fingers were groping. By the time the Hornets finally detected the U/MF, it was less than eight nautical miles away.

  It took nearly twenty seconds for the Navy pilots to realize the odd, unidentifiable returns on their radars were definitely a bogey. One of the pilots fired an AMRAAM, even though the Flighthawk screen showed he hadn’t locked; Zen reflexively reached for the button to dispense chaff.

  Madrone didn’t bother, apparently realizing that he was so close and so fast that the missile, even if properly aimed, wouldn’t be a threat. He was correct; C3 flicked it off with a quick buzz of its ECMs, barely breaking a sweat as the missile sailed past, self-detonating about two miles away.

  Madrone pressed a heads-on attack against the lead plane. The Hornet pilot handled it well, waiting until the Flighthawk began firing to make his move, a rolling dive to the right. Under ordinary circumstances against nearly any other plane, his tucking roll would have brought him behind the aggressor, leaving him with an easy Sidewinder shot. But against the U/ MF, the Hornet pilot would have been better off pulling the yellow handle at the side of his seat.

  Madrone tucked his nose and threw his tail out a bit, the vectored thrusters on the Flighthawk yanking it around so quickly that he closed on the Hornet’s tail before the other plane completed its maneuver. He was within two hundred yards when he began firing the cannon again; two seconds later the back end of his target exploded.

  As quickly as it happened, nailing the Hornet still took time. Had the pilot of the second plane been a coward or perhaps simply more prudent, the second F/A-18 could have escaped. But the Navy lieutenant in the trail plane was either brave or reckless, depending on the perspective; he pressed on toward the fresh contact his radar locked on eight miles away — the Megafortress.

  Zen guessed that Gal’s RWR had buzzed upstairs, for the plane suddenly lurched eastward. He reached to flip’the screen into Gal’s sensor array, which he could view but not control through the diagnostic station. Before he could complete the sequence and bring up the image, Madrone had begun to close on the Hornet’s twin tailpipe.

  The F/A-18’s wing flared. He’d launched an AMRAAM. A second dropped off the rail. Then a long stream of red appeared, arcing from the nose of the Flighthawk. But Madrone had started to fire a few seconds too soon to score a fatal hit — the targeting control on C3 had always been slightly optimistic.

  The Hornet veered upward, perhaps to try and outclimb its pursuer. All Madrone had to do was nudge his nose slightly to alter his aim and keep coming; the Flighthawk had built enough momentum to smash bullets through the right wing of the McDonnell-Douglas fighter, shearing it off between the outboard and inboard stores pylon.

  Zen saw the Hornet’s canopy fly away as the plane began to spin. The Flighthawk veered off.

  Then he remembered the AMRAAMs.

  * * *

  “Aircraft targeted. Radar matched from library. ECMs prepared.”

  Minerva stared at the legend in the screen at the right side of the dash as the RWR continued to clang. The Megafortress had not only detected the missiles, but computed the proper response.

  But it wanted her to authorize it. How?

  “Activate ECMs,” she said into her headset.

  Nothing happened.

  She twisted back to Breanna, then realized she wouldn’t help.

  “Use the word ‘computer,’ “ said Mayo.

  “Computer, activate ECMs,” Minerva said.

  “Acknowledged,” responded a programmed voice.

  The tone stopped. There was a flash in the sky two miles off their wing.

  “Why are we not to go over ten thousand feet?” said Mayo.

  Minerva turned toward her lieutenant. He stared at her. Before she could say anything, he pulled back on the stick. With one hand, she reached for the controls. With the other, she drew the gun from her belt.

  Mayo threw himself on her before she could retrieve the revolver. The plane lurched left as they struggled, the nose rising before abruptly pitching downward.

  * * *

  Breanna hunkered down as best she could as the two struggled. The plane rolled on its wing, pitching itself wildly toward the earth.

  Gravity slammed her from two directions at once. The plane began to spin. She heard something pop a few feet away, and then a dark cowl tightened around her head, the violent g forces depriving her brain of blood.

  “Let the computer fly it,” she said, or maybe just thought — she didn’t want to say anything, didn’t want to help them. Negative g’s tore at her body, twisting it like a bag of loose Jell-O; her head snapped back against the seat while her legs flew outward.

  She remembered the night in the hospital with Jeff after his accident, the night that turned into a week that became a year, a dark hood around her head that had never completely cleared, a cowl she’d clawed and pushed and punched away.

  The Megafortress stumbled through an invert and blood rushed to her head, and now Rap knew she was going to die, felt the grim weightlessness that precedes the final auger-in. The back of the plane lurched upward, a fish snapping its tail in the air as it arced over the water.

  Breanna remembered the first day she’d seen Jeff, standing in the cockpit of a cranked-arrow F-16, a grin like nothing she’d ever seen before, and eyes — sparkling eyes that held the soft place inside her, that could ferret out her secrets. The afternoon they’d made love for the first time, she knew he would be her husband, knew she wanted to go nowhere else.

  Her head snapped forward and then back twice, gravity pounding her face like a middleweight working a bag.

  And then the storm was over. The engines’ powerful thrust propelled them upward with a jerk. The computer had taken over and managed to wrestle the plane level.

  Breanna twisted toward the front. Minerva sat in the copilot’s seat, tensely guiding the plane.

  Breanna let herself hang forward over the radar control console. All of the Megafortresses designed to work with the Flighthawks had locator beacons with an omnidirectional, “always-on” signal that could be read by standard IFF units about fifty miles away. The beacon could only be activated through the flight computer and required authentication to initiate, since it potentially could help an enemy find the otherwise stealthy plane. Staring at the inactive radar screens, Breanna made
up her mind to find a way to issue the command. A headset lay at the base of the left tube; if it was active, her voice might just carry loud enough for the computer to respond.

  She couldn’t reach it, though. And there was no way to speak loud enough without the others hearing.

  An auxiliary keyboard sat in the cubby below the tubes. She tried scrunching her body down — maybe she could get it with her teeth, somehow hit the right combination of keys.

  Her arms suddenly sprang apart, freed. She fell forward, smacking her face on the tube. She pushed upward, determined to ignore the pain, make the most of this stroke of luck.

  “No,” said Minerva behind her. She put her hand on Breanna’s shoulder and forced her back into the seat. Rap began to push back, but a knife slid along the back of her ear. The skin felt cold, and then as if it were pulling itself apart.

  “I want you to fly the plane,” Minerva told her.

  “Me? You trust me to fly the plane?” Breanna began to laugh. “Are we giving up?”

  “Hardly. Captain Madrone intends on bombing San Francisco.”

  “You’re insane. I’ll never help you.”

  “It’s possible that I may be able to talk Captain Madrone out of it. In any event, you have a choice. Either you help me, and we possibly save San Francisco as well your husband and yourself. Or I kill you and let Captain Madrone do as he pleases.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “I am many things, but not crazy. I would prefer you to fly the plane,” she added, pushing the point of the blade into Breanna’s neck.

  “What happened to your pilot?” said Breanna. But as she turned to face her captor she saw the answer — Mayo lay on the floor.

  “He had only one bullet in his gun,” said Lanzas. “It was unfortunate that it struck him in his head. Now — move him and fly the plane.”

  “Okay,” said Breanna.

  Chapter 98